Element questions

[Light-n-Sound Tech]

We've got an Element 60 board. Most of the time we stick with our first universe to control all of our stage lights and our second universe to control our house lights and a couple LED fixtures we have. We recently we're setting up for a group that was not only going to use the lights on stage, but were also going to utilize our LEDs. When we went to troubleshoot, we found out that our second universe may be shot. Luckily we had a smaller board that was in my light box that we were able to hook up and use.

So my question is, has anyone else had this happen to them? I have a feeling that we'll have to send this one in after this next group is done.

While I'm thinking about too, what would cause the DRAM to burn up? Our other Element 60 had this happen and we ended up just sending it in.

 

[np18358]

I have used three different Element (all 40/500's), all were basically bought when ETC released the Element, and I haven't had a single issue. One the Second Universe is rarely used, another just as much as the first, and in another, is very similar to your situation, where you have the primary conventional running in the first, and a few LED's and Scrollers on the Second, but it is still used somewhat often.

 

[Light-n-Sound Tech]

That tells me then that something down in our auditorium could be wonky. We use two 60s , one up in the chapel and the other in the auditorium. They one we just got back was in the auditorium with the fried DRAM. The one in the chapel was down in the auditorium because we needed it for orientation. In that situation, the second universe ran fine. Only after we brought it back up did we start having problems with not only the second universe going out, but all having a burning smell produced that lasted for a few hours. I'm making a bet that the smell may have something to do with the universe, but I could be wrong.

 

[sashapixie]

My guess is that somehow voltage got to the DMX chip for Universe 2. Can you swap the ports and get control of Universe 2?
You can change the settings in the console by exiting out to the shell and choosing Settings. Then choose {Local I/O} from the right. You can change the settings so they port output the opposite universes. If this changes the control then it is likely just a chip. If not, you may have bad cables.

I must say a burning smell is a bit worrisome.

 

[np18358]

I know somebody who had a similar issue to you, but on three different Expresses. They found that they had distro feeder cable crossing over the DMX cable, and it was introducing some stray power into the DMX line, and after a while it burned the chip. First time was about a year after the hardwired DMX had gone bad and they were using a line they ran themselves, so they thought nothing of it, second time happened 4 months later, they got a little suspicious, so they ran a new DMX line a different, and didn't have an issue for 3 years. Then they needed the DMX cable for a rental, so they went back to the old one (by this point they had actually had more feeder cable running around), and within a month and a half, the chip was burnt again. They checked all the cabling, and they found that there was a point by the dimmer rack where it crossed (a few times actually) with some feeder cable. They dressed it up better so it wouldn't touch, and they haven't had the issue since. It may be possible that it's not distro cable, but some sort of power wiring introducing some sort of unintended signals into your system.

 

[WooferHound]

Make sure that you have the number of dimmers set to 1024 in the setup menu